


A Five Step Guide To Brushing Kinky Hair

by idowritingnowiguess



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Families of Choice, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Foster Care, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Racism, a dog - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-13 15:44:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18034505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idowritingnowiguess/pseuds/idowritingnowiguess
Summary: Step 1: Run away from your foster mother.Step 2: Fall down a hole.Step 3: Be driven from the ruins by a mysterious ghost.Step 4: Be discovered by the royal scientist.Step 5: Find the only adult you will ever trust.





	A Five Step Guide To Brushing Kinky Hair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PastelClark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastelClark/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Not as Simple as a Happy Ending](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5571245) by [PastelClark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastelClark/pseuds/PastelClark). 



> this is the first fictional or recreational work above 500 words that I have written since I was 10, please enjoy
> 
> (These interpretations of Perse and Gaster aren't mine, they're those of the story linked above. This *might* make sense if you haven't read that, but it also might not.)

  
X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̸̟̺̯͑̃X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠. X̴̲͓̽̚̚X̵̭̠̳̒̚͠X̵͖̋X̴̴̧͕͉̖͍̤͊͒͆̓͢͠X̷͔̝̭̋X̴̨̞̒͝’s hair had been a subject of conflict in nearly every house she’d been dumped onto.

 

Constantly being ridiculed -

 

“God, it just looks so _messy_ _-”_

 

Wearing wigs every day -

 

“It’s unruly, and I won’t have it under my roof!”

 

Being forced to endure hour-long, brutal combing sessions, going to bed with her skull aching every night -

 

“ _Hold still!_ I won’t ask you again!”

 

But she drew the line here. She wouldn’t let this fucker come near her with scissors.

“ _What_ do you think people are going to think of us? Get over here right now or I’ll slap you into next week!”

She snapped. _“Fuck you!”_

The woman reared back as if she had been struck, and a fire burned in her eyes. **_“You little bitch!”_ ** She charged towards X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̸̟̺̯͑̃X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠., who managed to duck under her reach, but then -

She _grabbed_ X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̸̟̺̯͑̃X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠.’s hair, and _yanked_ her back. **_“I’m gonna fucking kill you!”_ **

X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̸̟̺̯͑̃X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠. yelled in pain, and then, thinking quickly, grabbed her foster mother’s arm and sunk her teeth into it. The woman _screamed_ and dropped her - and X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̸̟̺̯͑̃X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠. didn’t skip a beat, scrambling by her, gathering Toby in her arms, and charging through the door.

Her foster mother’s howls of rage and pain faded from her ears fairly quickly, but she kept pace as if the woman was on her heels all the way to Mount Ebott.

 

X

X

X

X

X

 

She could have just stayed in the Ruins, but… there was something in there. It was something that she didn’t like. She didn’t know if it couldn’t leave, or if it just didn’t.

She wanted more than anything to understand it. She hated to leave knowledge unknown. But even if she could stand the presence for long enough to do something, what would that something be? When she was around it, their minds didn’t seem to be the most solidly separated, and with that weak link between them she could feel it’s anger, and it scared her.

She could feel it, in the depths of her mind and on the back of her neck. She could hold on to it enough to examine it, and was pretty sure that she could communicate with it, but it couldn’t communicate with her. She felt _so close_.

Some of it was unwillingness, she thought, but not all of it. And X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̸̟̺̯͑̃X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠. wasn’t normally so emotional, but she felt as if she had failed it in some way.

She felt like if she was just a _little_ more - she didn’t know what, just a little more _something_ \- she felt like there was something that if she had, then she could talk to it. Really talk to it, and know it, and help it.

But whatever that was, she didn’t have it. Maybe somebody else did.

X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̸̟̺̯͑̃X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠. didn’t give up on things, but she knew that sometimes you have to leave a problem for a bit to come back for an answer. And there was a lot more to learn about in the Underground.

But she wanted the presence to know that she wasn’t leaving just for the hell of it, and that she _wanted_ to understand it, and that she wasn’t abandoning it permanently.

So when she and Toby left the Ruins for what would be the last time, just before their link would sever, she turned as if to face it, and she spoke -

“I’ll come back for you.”

And she couldn’t tell for sure, but through that connection, she would swear that she felt surprise.

 

X

X

X

X

X

 

She had a few routines that she defaulted to when she was in Hotland. A step of one of those was sneaking into a nearby lab and grabbing some food. The monster who lived there full time was always out for most of this particular day.

Unfortunately, she must have gotten sloppy, because she heard a door open behind her. She grabbed Toby in preparation to flee, but it was too late. The monster had already seen her.

He jolted and she tensed. Frozen to the spot, he didn’t move for a longer time than he should have. Later she would know that he was remembering something that had shaken him to his core, something that he had had been unable to juxtapose with his past morals. Detachedly, she thought, _“I’m definitely going to have to reload.”_

_“Fuck,”_ the monster growled, and then did the last thing she expected: he turned and bolted the door behind him. “Don’t move,” he ordered, but it was almost half hearted, as if he didn’t even see her as a threat.

Neither of them said anything. The monster, it seemed, simply had no idea what to do with her. He suddenly turned and made as if to punch the wall, but instead of following through he slowed down at the last minute and smacked it with an open palm, thereby turning the angry gesture into nothing more than an awkward flail. If it wasn’t such a serious situation, she would have laughed.

He circled around to the side of the room and leaned against a lab table, studying her warily. “How old are you?”

“I’m thirteen.”

“ **_Fuck!_ **” He slammed his hand on the table and seemed to immediately regret it when he saw how heavily she startled. “Hey, it’s okay -”

He was acting as if she was a scared horse. “It’s fine.”

He was still looking at her. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Really?” He could be lying, of course, but she really didn’t think so. He would be the first in all these resets to try and her trick her into her death. Everyone had been pretty up front about it so far. “Why?”

He didn’t answer the question. “You can call me Doctor Seraph.”

“...alright.”

“...”

“...”

“You have a dog.”

“Yeah.”

“...what’s your name?”

Her mouth quirked. “You can call me Doctor X̴̲͓̽̚̚X̵̭̠̳̒̚͠X̵͖̋X̴̴̧͕͉̖͍̤͊͒͆̓͢͠X̷͔̝̭̋X̴̨̞̒͝.”

He snorted. It wasn’t really a joke worthy of auditory acknowledgement, but she supposed he was so on edge that he hadn’t been expecting it.

"Alright, fine. My _first_ name is WingDings.”

“ _WingDings_?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s not your name.”

“I assure you, it is.”

“Do you have a middle name?”

“Gaster.”

“That’s a tad more on the normal side. I think I’ll be calling you that, if you don’t mind.” I mean, she understood there were some cultural differences at play, but _WingDings? Really?_

“Bossy,” he snarked, but there was no real malice. “Have I jumped through enough hoops for you to tell me what to call you?”

“I’m X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̸̟̺̯͑̃X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠.”

“Hmm. I think I’ll go with X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠.”

“Oh, God, please don’t.” She had never understood why people shortened their names, even less why everyone she met seemed to insist on shortening hers.

“I don’t think you’re one to talk.”

She grinned. “Fair enough, _Gaster_.”

 

They talked off-and-on long into the artificial night. He was fixing some sort of medical magical-machinery, (which sounded _incredibly_ interesting and she really wanted to take a look but this timeline had been exhausting and she just didn’t have the energy) and she was entertaining herself with Toby, who the Doctor had instantly hit it off with. Eventually, though, she became less and less responsive. He realized with a start. “Oh my God, you need to sleep!”

“Y-”

“There’s a bathroom down the hall, and there should be spare toothbrushes under the sink. I’ll drag a cot down from the medical ward, everybody’s gone home by now. You won’t murder me, right?”

“No, but I’d say that anyway.”

“Good enough. I’ll be right back.”

He left. She was more than surprised that he was just going to let her sleep here, but she knew that there was something motivating him that he wasn’t letting on. She started down the hall, Toby on her heels.

When she was finished brushing her teeth, she looked in the mirror. The last time she had brushed her hair was at Toriel’s… she usually just reset time and it went back to normal. It had gotten ungodly messed while she was traipsing around the Underground. She attempted to run her fingers through it.

They caught on approximately 70 knots. **_“OW! SHIT!”_ **

Gaster chose that moment to walk in. “I got - do you need some help with that?”

She froze immediately. That was a casual suggestion to Gaster, but he had walked onto a landmine without even knowing it.

“I think hair is easier to brush if you wash it. You could take a shower if you want. I guess you don’t have clean clothes, though… You could just brush your hair tonight, and I’ll find you some tomorrow.”

_How_ could he just talk so nonchalantly about something like her _hair?_ She nodded, her mouth dry. “Okay, I’ll see if I can hunt up a brush in the communal showers, and I’ll grab some rubber bands. You can wet your hair down if you want. And uh… then tomorrow we can talk about getting you back to the surface.”

She could barely hear what he was saying.

The Doctor left to retrieve the items promised, and X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̸̟̺̯͑̃X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠ took a deep breath. She steadied herself on the rim of the sink and looked in the mirror. Her hair stuck out in all directions, matted to hell and back and covered in sticks and mud. Her hands trembled on the white porcelain.

She could reset. Just start over and forget this ever happened. She could turn back time and never come to this lab again. But she’d lose an ally and a safe place to sleep, and for what?

She ducked her head under the faucet. The cold water streamed, running through her hair and down the back of her neck. It felt like heaven, and she relaxed a bit. When her hair was good and soaked, she leaned back and turned the tap off. It didn’t look any better wet, just soggy and sad.

Gaster was back. “Alright, come into the break room with me.”

She sat down and panicked. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, what was she thinking? He was either going to kill her, or pull at her hair so hard that her scalp bled.

She tried to hold on to Toby for some comfort, but he wiggled his way out of her arms immediately. He would not make a good therapy dog.

“Holy shit, kid. What did you do?” Gaster was laughing. “How do you even start with this?”

She didn’t respond. She didn’t think she could speak if he put a gun to her head, her throat felt so tight.

He took a small knot in her hair, close to the end, and pulled it apart (as far as she could tell, she couldn’t exactly see him.) She wasn’t quite sure what he was doing. Stalling for time, maybe? He unraveled another one, and another. He seemed to have more trouble with the next, humming in annoyance, but he kept at it, muttering that he “... usually did this with fur.”

That was when she realized that _this_ was his game plan. Holy shit. She was taken so off guard that she forgot she couldn’t talk. “It will take forever if you do it bit by bit like that.”

“I’ll just go to town on it if you really want me to, but it would hurt a lot. Especially with this texture.” She couldn’t read his tone.

Did he not know how this worked? She was so confused that she couldn’t even begin to figure out what she was supposed to think. She had had hands in her hair for so many reasons, but none of them had been gentle.

“Hey, kid. Entertain me.”

“What?”

“Give me some small talk. Where are you from, what are you doing here. What’s your major, what’s your favorite type of cake. Take your pick.”

“I don’t have a major, I’m thirteen.”

“I give you three perfectly good questions and all you do is focus on my mistakes. I just can’t please you.”

“Chocolate with chocolate.”

“Smart girl.”

He worked in silence for a bit, but eventually she broke it. “I’m from all over, I guess. Never stayed in one place very long.”

Another short silence. “I fell down because I was trying to stop this dumbass from killing himself.” She nudged Toby with her foot, and Gaster laughed. “Now it’s my turn to ask you something.”

“That’s not really how conversation works, just taking turns interrogating each other.”

She ignored him. “Why are you protecting me?”

He sighed. “Maybe I just don’t agree with mainstream politics, is that so unlikely?”

“I’m sure you have some interesting opinions, but I think there’s something more to it.”

“Isn’t _not_ murdering people the default?”

“Not me. Not down here.”

He picked up the brush and she winced internally, but he was careful, holding the hair he worked at tightly to ensure it didn’t pull directly at her scalp.

Surprisingly, she didn’t press, but eventually he conceded. “There were others.”

She spoke quietly. “I picked up as much.”

“Two. Both boys,” he continued. “One was… well, I don’t know how to judge human age, but he was pretty young. The other was probably a little older than you.”

He used a rubber band to separate a section from the one below it. Once again, they spent a few minutes in silence, but eventually he spoke of his own volition.

“The younger fell first.”

“What… exactly happened?”

He sighed again. “I assume you know Toriel?”

“Yes.” She was surprised, but she affirmed that she did.

“That’s good. I’m glad she’s… still trying in there. Do you know who she is?”

“I… think that I’ve figured it out.”

“Right.” Another sigh. “Did she mention the others at all?”

“Not in detail, but yes.”

He let down the rubber band, and began to untangle the knots on the other side of her head. It was a long time before he spoke again.

“The youngest snuck out of the Ruins to buy her a birthday cake.”

She grimaced. That was awful.

“Asgore struck him down in Snowdin. There was so much blood. I... just can’t understand how he… The other was in Hotland. Made it further than any of us were expecting. He didn’t even try to fight Asgore, he just kept telling him that he could do better… Fuck, when he said it, I think he was right, but not anymore. He actually did a damn good job, talking him down… Sometimes I wonder…”

X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̸̟̺̯͑̃X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠ didn’t have a very high emotional intelligence, but even she could tell that he was upset. She almost regretted asking him, but she really wanted to learn more.

“If it had been just the two of them… maybe he would have listened. I don’t know. The both of them seemed like really good kids.”

“Shit,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, that about sums it up. Now it’s my turn.”

“What? Oh, right.”

“How many times have we had this conversation?”

She froze. “...What?”

“I’m a scientist. Do you think I didn’t notice the affinity your kind has for making time your bitch? Close your mouth, you’ll catch flies.”

She had not expected anybody to acknowledge her ability, ever. “I’ve… I’ve seen you before but this is the first time we’ve talked.”

“First impressions are important.”

“...I’ve been stealing food from you for a while, relatively. I knew you were gone most of this day, but I must have gotten sloppy with my timing.”

“Stealing’s wrong, X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠. I feel hurt.”

As the shock wore off, X̴̸̧̛̜̘͚̝̣͂͒͛͛͢Ẍ̶̩́̈́̽̕͜X̸̟̺̯͑̃X̴̩̖͈̽̕҉̷̦͔͍̌X̶̻͇̒҉̴͈̜͐͊̓͠ began to realize the implications of Gaster’s knowledge. “Who cares what I’ve done, how did you know? How are you tracking time? How much do you know about what’s been happening? How much do you know about how it works?”

“Calm down, kiddo. I promise I’ll tell you tomorrow. Alright, I'm done.”

“You’re - done?” Her hair. She’d almost forgotten about it.

“Yup. I’m pretty great.”

“Oh, wow.” She ran her fingers through her hair. It hurt, but not anywhere near as bad as she was used to. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Now go to bed. I left some extra blankets for the dog.”

She fell asleep feeling an unplaceable sense of joy, and when she woke up the next morning, she loaded her SAVE file. She was back to a few hours before she had been caught at the labs, and she immediately headed in their direction.

She would encounter Gaster in a variety of ways, but they all lead to the same result.

 

“Do you think you could help me comb my hair?”

 

She replayed the moment over and over, but eventually the morning came where she decided Gaster was too much of an equal for her to be above him in such a way. And she wasn’t a shy girl, so she simply marched up to him and asked, “Will you help me with my hair again this morning?”

 

And she asked him the next morning, and the morning after that.

 

X

X

X

X

X

 

The name came about one afternoon when she was tinkering with the medical stabilizer (the intersection of magical and mechanical absolutely fascinated her) and Gaster was acting as a glorified lab assistant. She asked him to hold some nails for her, and he fondly but snarkily replied with, “whatever you say, princess.”

But then the next time he said it was less applicable, and more gentle, and the time after that, and then - it was a _nickname_ , and she had never had an adult give her a _positive_ nickname before.

And once, he used it when he said goodnight to her, and she wanted so badly to hug him. It wasn’t a huge deal, and she could always just reload if she embarrassed herself. She was a rational being, she shouldn’t be so - but she didn’t - she’d never -

He knelt down, and she felt his arms around her. She pressed her face into his coat and tried to stop herself from tearing up.

Ha… it smelled like science.

 

X

X

X

X

X

 

_Everything was burning._

 

_Everything was chaos._

 

_She didn’t know what was happening._

 

_She was so scared. She was crying. She needed help, please -_

 

_She called out for help, but -_

 

_Oh God, where was the Doctor?_

 

**_The Doctor must be in trouble. She had to get to him._ **

 

**_She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t form a single cohesive thought. That was all she knew - she_ ** **_had_ ** **_to find Gaster, she had to help Gaster. She had to help the man who had sheltered her and given her a nickname and played with her dog and taught her temporal physics and brushed her hair -_ **

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Everything went black.

**Author's Note:**

> writing that ending felt bad man
> 
> Did Clark say narrator Chara is not canon in Not As Simple? Yes. Will I allow something as puny as canon to stop me? No.
> 
> Originally contained like 600 words about Perse climbing the mountain and falling until I realized it wasn't relevant.
> 
> I don't remember if Gaster knew about the timelines or if Perse told him. I'm pretty sure i got it wrong but w/e.
> 
> I'd like to think that when he asked her how many times they'd had this conversation he wasn't actually certain about the time powers, he just really wanted to sound cool. There's an alternate universe where he was wrong and he just looked like a fucking idiot.
> 
> Given how Perseverance died, "everything went black" is probably not an accurate description, but artistic license.
> 
> When Perseverance describes Gaster as an equal, she is not talking about his knowledge of her chronokinesis.
> 
> _If you want to get in touch, that's perfectly welcome, and you can find me on Tumblr[here](http://unreasonable-keysmash.tumblr.com) or [here](http://idowritingnowiguess.tumblr.com)._


End file.
